Musk is in big trouble.
After the rise of China's automobile manufacturing, Tesla has been hit far more than imagined. It turned out that Musk was most worried that the production capacity would not be able to keep up, and now that Tesla has begun to lay off employees and entered the contraction stage, in the future, whether it can survive is two words.
Tesla announced earlier this month that its vehicle deliveries for the first quarter of 2024 fell 20.1% from the previous quarter to less than 387,000 units. Bloomberg reported that this was Tesla's worst quarterly performance since 2022.
Musk announced Tesla's mass layoffs on April 15. In a memo to employees, he wrote that the company had laid off "more than 10 percent." And the media reported that Musk intends to eventually lay off up to 20% of his workforce.
On the one hand, Tesla's overshadowing, and on the other hand, China's car manufacturing is soaring.
At the beginning of the year, the survey and analysis believes that China's new energy vehicle market space is still very large, with the improvement of consumer recognition, the average penetration rate of domestic new energy passenger vehicles this year is expected to increase from 35% last year to 45%, an annual increase of 10 percentage points, equivalent to more than 2 million domestic increments this year, at the same time, with the acceleration of new energy vehicle exports, will form a large increase. It is estimated that China's new energy vehicle sales will reach 15 million units this year.
At that time, 45 percent, or 15 million units, was the bold target. But less than four months have passed, and that is too conservative for now.
In the first two weeks of April, the market share of new energy vehicles has already exceeded half, reaching 50.4%. This is not the end, some media made a questionnaire, more than 70% of people think that if they buy a car, they will buy new energy vehicles, and only a little more than 20% of people are willing to choose fuel vehicles.
It can only be said that the tide has changed, and once the trend is established, it is unstoppable.
The cake of new energy vehicles is getting bigger and bigger, and it is only Tesla that is showing fatigue.
Musk is also "at the helm" of SpaceX, Neuroconnect, and the social media platform X. But these companies are "burning money", and only one Tesla makes money.
One of Musk's grand dreams is to realize Martian migration, and he hopes to send a million people to Mars and build a sustainable community there.
The ideal is so lofty, but since ancient times, heroes have been short of money.
Musk once said frankly that going to Mars is his life goal, and building a car is a job, just to make money.
This can understand why Tesla has not produced new products for four years, and only relies on two models, model Y and model 3, to win the world.
Now the dream is still in the sky, but Tesla, the cash cow, is about to stop producing milk, and the time has come to test Musk.
If Tesla falls, and chip manufacturing is taken down by China again, it means that the light of science and technology in the United States will be extinguished, and the United States will really have nothing left.
In the history of the West, there are three countries that can be called world hegemons.
The first is Spain, which through the Great Voyage, once reached 40 million square kilometers, and was the first to shout the name of the empire on which the sun never sets. It reigned for more than 100 years from the 16th to the 17th centuries.
The second country is the United Kingdom, which through the industrial revolution, foreign trade, and a territory of 50 million square kilometers, is the second country to claim the empire on which the sun never sets. Britain became the world's greatest power from the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 to 1922, after the end of World War I. It has also flourished for more than 100 years.
The third country is the United States, and in 1922 Britain was nominally the world hegemon, but it was no longer comparable to the United States in terms of strength. The United States stays away from war, buries itself in development, and does not take the initiative to provoke other countries. By now, the United States has also been thriving for more than 100 years.
The situation today is very similar to the world 100 years ago in 1922. The role of the United States is like that of Britain at that time, relying on its strength to intervene in everything, but as a result, it is mired in a quagmire.
It's another 100 years, and it's time for the world to change.